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“Women of Conscience” or “Women of Conviction”? The National Women's Committee on Civil Rights

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2009

HELEN LAVILLE
HELEN LAVILLE
Affiliation:
Department of American and Canadian Studies, University of Birmingham. E-mail: h.laville@bham.ac.uk
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Abstract

This paper explores the history of the National Women's Committee on Civil Rights (NWCCR). Called into being at the behest of President Kennedy, the NWCCR was an attempt to enlist the support of the organized women of America in the advancement of civil rights. The NWCCR had two main goals: first, to offer support for the passage of Kennedy's civil rights legislation, and second, to encourage their branch membership to work in support of integration. However, whilst the majority of the NWCCR's affiliated organizations had passed resolutions in favour of integration both throughout the United States and within their own organization, in practice they were reluctant to threaten the internal stability of their associations by insisting on either integrated membership or active support of civil rights in the local community. This article will argue that whilst the NWCCR were successful in organizing lobbying for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, they were unwilling to throw their weight behind efforts to encourage activism in local communities. Whilst key members of the NWCCR saw an important role for women in the implementation of civil rights at the community level, they were forced to conclude that the organizational structure and ethical inertia of the NWCCR did not make it a suitable medium for furthering racial justice.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , August 2009 , pp. 277 - 295
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

1 Report on White House Conference on Civil Rights with Women's Organizations, 9 July 1963, NWCCR Papers, Records of the Women's Bureau, Department of Labor, National Archives, Maryland (hereafter NWCCR Papers), box 19.

2 “We Made a Difference,” report of the NWCCR, July 1964, American Association of University Women Archives 1881–1976 (hereafter AAUW Records), reel 146.

3 NCWWR Steering Committee minutes, 9 July 1964, AAUW Records, reel 146.

4 See, for example, Virginia Foster Durr, Outside the Magic Circle: The Autobiography of Virginia Foster Durr (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1990); Catherine Fosl, Subversive Southerner: Anne Braden and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Cold War South (New York and London: Palgrave Macmillian, 2002); Anne C. Loveland, Lillian Smith: A Southerner Confronting the South: A Biography (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1986); Kathryn Nasstrom, Everybody's Grandmother and Nobody's Fool: Frances Freeborn Pauley and the Struggle for Social Justice (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2000); Essay collections include Gail S. Murray, ed., Throwing off the Cloak of Privilege: White Southern Women Activists in the Civil Rights Era (Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 2004); Constance Curry, et al., Deep in Our Hearts: Nine White Women in the Freedom Movement (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2000). See also Lynne Olson, Freedom's Daughters: The Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement from 1830–1970 (New York: Touchstone, 2001), for a consideration of both white and black activists. Sara Mitchell Parsons, From Southern Wrongs to Civil Rights: The Memoir of a White Civil Rights Activist (Tuscaloosa and London: The University of Alabama Press, 2000).

5 See, for example, Jacoway, Elizabeth, “Down from the Pedestal: Gender and Regional Culture in a Ladylike Assault on the Southern Way of Life,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 54, 3 (Autumn 1997), 345–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Andrew Lewis, “Emergency Mothers: Basement Schools and the Preservation of Public Education in Charlottesville,” in Matthew Lassiter and Andrew Lewis, eds., The Moderate's Dilemma: Massive Resistance to School Desegregation in Virginia (Charlottesville, University Press of Virginia, 1998); Mertz, Paul E., “Mind Changing Time “all over Georgia: HOPE and School Desegregation 1958–1961,” Georgia Historical Quarterly, 77 (Spring 1993), 41–61.Google Scholar

6 The transformation of the Young Women's Christian Association from a segregated organization to an integrated one has been explored by Susan Lynne and Helen Laville, whilst Christina Greene has investigated the response of women's organizations in Durham, North Carolina to the civil rights movement. Susan Lynne, Children of One Father: The Development of an Interracial Organization in the YWCA,” chapter 2 of idem, Progressive Women in Conservative Times: Racial Justice, Peace and Feminism, 1945 to the 1960s (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992); Laville, Helen, “‘If the Time Is Not Ripe, Then It Is Your Job to Ripen the Time!’ The Transformation of the YWCA from Segregated Association to Interracial Organization 1930–1965,” Women's History Review, 15, 3 (July 2006), 359–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Christina Greene, Our Separate Ways: Women and the Black Freedom Movement in Durham, North Carolina (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2005).

7 “National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Club issues Statement on Midtown Suit” (not dated), AAUW Records, reel 79.

8 Ibid.

9 Letter from Louise Franklin Bache to Kathryn McHale, 28 Nov. 1942, AAUW Records, reel 78.

10 Letter from Louise Bache to Kathryn McHale 5 Feb 1943, AAUW Records, reel 79.

11 For a full account see Leone, Janice, “Integrating the American Association of University Women 1946–1949,” Historian, 51, 3 (1989), 423–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Journal of the AAUW, 42, 3 (Spring 1949), 134.

13 Journal of the AAUW, 43, 1 (Fall 1949), 27.

14 Ibid., 26.

15 Journal of the AAUW, 42, 3 (Spring 1949), 135.

16 Ibid., 131.

17 Ibid., 134.

18 Ibid.

19 Parsons, From Southern Wrongs to Civil Rights, 21, original emphasis.

20 Atlanta Journal, 5 April 1956.

21 Mrs. Phillips to Frances Pauley, 12 June 1959, Frances F. Pauley Collections, box 5, file 1, Robert Woodruff Library, Emory University.

22 Interview with Nan Pendergrast, conducted by Kathryn Nasstrom, Georgia Government Documentation Project, Series J. William Pullen Library, Atlanta, GA.

23 See Laville, “If the Time Is Not Ripe.”

24 Report on White House Conference on Civil Rights with Women's organizations, 9 July 1963, NWCCR Papers, box 19.

25 Subject meeting of the Steering Committee, NWCCR, 17 Sept. 1963, AAUW Archives, reel 146.

26 “How Women in Washington Helped,” NWCCR newsletter, 1, 2, March 1964, AAUW Records, reel 146.

27 Memo to related organizations and state and city groups from the NWCCR, 17 April 1964, AAUW Records, reel 146.

28 Pamphlet produced by the National Women's Committee for Civil Rights, 15 Aug. 1963, AAUW Records, reel 146.

29 Ibid.

30 Minutes of the Steering Committee, 17 Sept. 1963, NWCCR Papers, box 20.

31 Edith Holbrook Riehm, “Dorothy Tilly and the Fellowship of the Concerned,” in Gail S. Murray, ed., Throwing off the Cloak of Privilege: White Southern Women Activists in the Civil Rights Era (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004), 31.

32 NWCCR Steering Committee Minutes, 13 Jan. 1964, NWCCR Papers, box 20.

33 Letter from Pauline Tompkins, AAUW, to Shirley Smith, executive director NWCCR, 25 Sept. 1963, AAUW Records, reel 146.

34 NWCCR Steering Committee Minutes, 13 Jan. 1964, NWCCR Papers, box 20.

35 Memo to Mrs. Harris, Mrs. Horton and Mrs. Peterson, from Shirley Smith, 6 March 1964, NWCCR papers.

36 Peggy Reach, NCCW, to the NWCCR Study Committee, 3 Aug. 1964, AAUW Records, reel 146.

37 Letter from Pauline Tompkins, AAUW, to Shirley Smith, executive director NWCCR, 25 Sept. 1963, AAUW Records, reel 146.

38 Letter from Eleanor Reid to Dr. Tompkins, 27 June 1964, AAUW Records, reel 146.

39 Letter from Frances Coker to Dr. Tompkins, 10 June 1964, AAUW Records, reel 146.

40 Letter from Lucy Haworth to Dr. Tompkins, 7 July 1964, AAUW Records, reel 146.

41 Letter from Katherine Vickery to Dr. Tompkins, 11 June 1964, AAUW Records, reel 146.

42 In her letter recommending that Cowan be made a consultant to the group, Smith noted that Mrs. Cowan was “our second most important non-organizational donor. Mrs. Cowan's gift of $250 made it possible for me to go to Selma.” Memo to Mrs. Peterson, Mrs. Horton and Mrs. Harris from Shirley Smith, 3 Dec. 1963, NWCCR Papers, file 19.

43 “And her new field is Civil Rights.” Washington Post, 19 Sept. 1963.

44 Letter from Shirley Smith to Mrs. Horton, 14 Feb. 1964, NWCCR papers, box 19.

45 Letter from Mrs. Horton to Shirley Smith, 3 March 1964, NWCCR papers, box 19.

46 Letter from Polly Cowan to Mrs. Horton, 24 March 1964, NWCCR Papers, box 19.

47 Letter from Mrs. Horton to Polly Cowan, 24 March 1964, NWCCR Papers, box 19.

48 Memo to Mrs. Peterson, Patricia Harris and Shirley Smith from Mrs. Horton, not dated, NWCCR Papers, box 19.

49 Letter from Mrs. Horton to Shirley Smith, 19 March 1964, NWCCR Papers, box 19.

50 Minutes of the Steering Committee, 8 April 1964, NWCCR Papers, box 21.

51 Polly Cowan in particular was a strong contributor to the group, contributing $1,250 in 1963 and 1964. The National Council of Negro Women paid for the salary of an assistant to the NWCCR.

52 Proposal for a Foundation grant from the Taconic Foundation, not dated, AAUW Archives, reel 146.

53 Memo: Review of Committee Operations, by Shirley Smith, 8 April 1964, NWCCR Papers, box 24.

54 Letter from Mrs. Horton to Miss Smith, 24 March 1964, NWCCR Papers, box 19.

55 Report of the Selma Meeting, 22 Nov. 1963, NWCCR papers, box 19.

56 Ibid.

57 Letter from Katherine Vickery to Dr. Tompkins, 11 June 1964, AAUW Records, reel 146.

58 Laila Boone to Pauline Tompkins, 14 Aug. 1964, AAUW Records, reel 146.

59 Report on a Trip to Selma, by Polly Cowan, NWCCR papers, box 19.

60 George Lewis, Massive Resistance: The White Response to the Civil Rights Movement (London: Hodder Arnold, 2006).

61 Letter from Polly Cowan to Mrs. Horton, 24 March 1964, NWCCR Papers, box 19.